Captain Vorpatril's Alliance Quotes

“I am not a fate worse than death, dammit!”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“The Imperial Service could win a war without coffee, but would prefer not to have to.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Anything worth achieving is worth overachieving.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Miles was…the thing is, he was afflicted with a severe birth injury. He grew up pretty much crippled, so he poured all his frustrated energy into his intellect. Since the Vorkosigan family motto might as well be, Anything worth achieving is worth overachieving, the effect was pretty frightening. And it worked for him, so he did it some more.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Colonel Otto, do you have a, perhaps, fuller and more detailed account than your preliminary one of why my Imperial Security building is now largely an underground installation? From a technical perspective.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“I seem to have accidentally got married, but it’s only temporary.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Tej seemed such a sunny personality, much of the time--these flashes of dark were like a crack in the sky, shocking and wrong. Reminding him that the daylight was the illusion, the scattering of light by the atmosphere, and the endless night was the permanent default behind it all.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Tej nodded again. “Then he turned up on my front steps. I thought he might be a capper stalking me. So I invited him in, and Rish shot him.” The cousin jerked slightly. The emperor’s eyebrows went up. “Stunned him, sweetling,” Rish corrected, urgently. “Just a little light stun, really.” “And then we dragged him up to our flat,” Tej went on. “This wasn’t in the ImpSec report,” said The Gregor. “It wasn’t relevant by then,” said Ivan Xav, in a distant tone. “Forgive, forget . . .” “So we tied him to a chair for the night,” said Tej. The Lord Auditor Coz made a strange little wheeing sound. He was biting his own hand, Tej noticed. Ivan Xav pointedly ignored him.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Reminding him that the daylight was the illusion, the scattering of light by the atmosphere, and the endless night was the permanent default behind it all.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“It was Ivan’s morning duty to open each box, identify the species, vigor, mood, and fang-count of the writhing things inside, and sort them by genuine urgency.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Byerly will no doubt wish to squire Rish.” Thus saving steps for ImpSec, too. Mamere was well aware of every angle. Ivan managed not to choke. “Just . . . don’t invite Miles. Or let him invite himself.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“It seemed to Ivan that he needed to court his wife. Promptly. In the next, what was it, ten days.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Ivan had never thought of his nightmares as being insufficiently imaginative, before tonight. Dark, wet, constricted, underground, check. How had he left out biohazards? After all that, the frigging unexploded bomb just seemed a . . . a redundant redundancy. And the stray corpse a mere decoration. How did I get into this mess? Miles isn’t even here.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Is your claustrophobia better now?” Delia asked Ivan Xav, more in a tone of curiosity than concern. Ivan Xav gritted his teeth. “I do not have claustrophobia. Thank you very much, Delia. There’s nothing irrational about it. . . . About me.” “But Miles said—” “I have an allergy to total strangers trying to kill me, is all. One that Miles shares, I might point out.” Delia’s lips twisted. “I don’t know, Ivan. I think Miles actually gets rather excited by that.” “You may be right,” agreed Galeni. “Do you suppose it’s the attention?” said Delia. “He does like to be at the center.” Ivan Xav choked into his own napkin at this one, and was drawn away from his little moment of irate by uniting with this old friend in trading scurrilous observations about The Coz, none of which, Tej noticed, Galeni tried to gainsay.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“I'm afraid even ImpSec has no explanation for women's tastes in men.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Could you people stop trying to come up with novel ways to kill me for just ONE HOUR? Or maybe the rest of the night? I would SO like that. Just the rest of the night. Just sit down. Just stop doing anything. Sit down and wait sensibly. Earth, water, air, fire - you're running out of elements here!”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“As the week wore on, Ivan contemplated the merits of inertia as a problem-solving technique with growing favor.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Not that people did much sailing on Ylla’s extensive oceans, nor swimming either—Yllan seawater tended to give humans strange rashes, and while humans were highly toxic morsels in the diet of the native sea monsters, the monsters were extremely stupid and kept not figuring this out.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“This is not a date, you idiot,” Tej snapped at him. To her annoyance, his smile inexplicably broadened.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“stunner this triggering energy pulse came”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Tej. Will you stay with me for the rest of my life?” At the little jump of the laugh in her chest, his encircling arm tightened, heartened and heartening. He’d intended her to laugh, she guessed. Ivan Xav was good at that, it occurred to her. Making light in dark places.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“I do not have a claustrophobia thing. I have a perfectly rational dislike of being locked up in small, dark, wet spaces by people trying to kill me.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“About Rish. You’re not making her, like, fall in love with you or anything, are you? Because you could be reassigned or something, and have to drop her. And I don’t want to be stuck in a flat full of weeping, angry women, with no male to take it out on but me.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Abuse—physical, mental, emotional?” “Sir?” said Tej, staring up in palpable confusion. “Does your husband beat you?” “No!” “Do you beat him?” “No!” said Ivan. “Good grief, sir!” “Does he insult you?” “Certainly not!” Their voices overlapped on that one.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Ivan?” Falco prodded. “Huh?” Ivan started. “Oh, you know I’m fine, sir!” “So we all have long hoped,” Falco murmured. “Well, that disposes of that issue. Next, adultery. Do either of you accuse the other of adultery?” “There’s hardly been time, sir!” said Ivan indignantly.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“The hands are strangely shy, until suddenly they turn eloquent. And then their candor could make you weep. A woman might fall in love with the hands. Though only if the woman were nearly as foolish as my little even-sister—which, luckily, doesn’t seem to be possible.” Tej threw a pillow at her.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Tej glanced toward the balcony. Toward him. Toward the balcony. Toward him. Why is this a hard choice? From the hallway, a teeth-gritting mechanical whine began, as of someone cutting through an airseal door. “You can’t tell me you’d rather jump off a twenty-story building and smash in your skull than marry me,” Ivan went on desperately. “I am not a fate worse than death, dammit! Or at least not worse than that death, good God!”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“For all his silences, the man was about as self-effacing as a neutron star; light itself seemed to bend around him.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Each box contained one of the following: live, venomous, agitated snakes on the verge of escape; quiescent venomous snakes; nonvenomous garden snakes; dead snakes; or things that looked like snakes but weren’t, such as large, sluggish worms.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

“Since the Vorkosigan family motto might as well be, Anything worth achieving is worth overachieving,”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance